Monday morning, the Israel Defense Force raided a flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, where nine activists were fatally shot. Everyone seems to agree with the lineup of events up until that point. The interesting thing about this whole situation is how both sides used online video to plead their cases, possibly giving insight into how communications and PR spin fixates itself into international relations in the future.

According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the activists on board “deliberately attacked soldiers.”

And IDF has video on their YouTube channel to prove their point:

Meanwhile the folks on the flotilla tell a different story. The Free Gaza Movement says that “Israeli commandoes dropped from a helicopter onto the Turkish passenger ship, Mavi Marmara, and began to shoot the moment their feet hit the deck. They fired directly into the crowd of civilians asleep.”

Like with the Nestle/Greenpeace situation, will governments use social media to get ahead of a PR disaster in the future?

Sebastián Piñera, the newly elected president of Chile, has asked all cabinet members to start tweeting. His own account is now the most-followed in the country. Venezuala’s Hugo Chávez tweets too (@chavezcandanga). In June only three Japanese politicians had accounts; now Politter, a site dedicated to Twitter and Japanese politics, lists 485. An analysis of last year’s German elections by the University of St Gallen discovered that 577 politicians had opened Twitter accounts, three-quarters of them in 2009. Greece’s prime minister George Papandreou uses Twitter. But @primeministergr is the office, not the man. His staff tweet for him, sometimes using a code to signal who wrote what.

However, does social media make politicians more accessible to their constituents and detractors? Possibly not. President Barack Obama won the White House, thanks in part to his campaign’s strong use of social media. According to the article, “at its height Barack Obama’s campaign (@barackobama) employed 100 staff working on social media such as Twitter.” Nonetheless, “the scale of response makes it hard for office-holders to tweet themselves. Mr Obama reads just a select ten of the messages (20,000 of all kinds) he receives daily.”

Recently, DigiActive went out and interviewed ordinary people about their thoughts on this matter. Some opinions were negative.

“At first, it might seem cool to follow and send tweets to your favorite politicians, but then you realize that the politician’s Twitter account is being run by some intern or secretary in their office, which I think defeats the purpose of politicians connecting with your constituents about their concerns,” said Nadya Ghanem of Turkey.

“What is the point of connecting with politicians online when they are not really connecting with you,” said Luis Calbarro of Suriname. “It’s like Twitter is no different from sending an email to a politician’s office and not getting a response. It might be read or thrown in a inbox with other Tweets. It is all window dressing.”

But some were hopeful of the future of political tweeting, like Shelly Kim from South Korea, who was exciting see the digital activism in her country’s recent presidential election. Last March there was some controversy over the use of Twitter by South Korean lawmakers and making it accessible for all.

“I have seen the power of why social media is being taken more seriously by politicians because they really do listen to what the people have to say,” she said.

Looking even closer at the new Facebook privacy changes, things get downright ugly when it comes to controlling who gets to see personal information such as your list of friends.  Under the new regime, Facebook treats that information — along with your name, profile picture, current city, gender, networks, and the pages that you are a “fan” of — as “publicly available information” or “PAI.” Before, users were allowed to restrict access to much of that information. Now, however, those privacy options have been eliminated.

These reductions in privacy protection have significant negative consequences for activists, particularly in repressive regimes where they communicate and affiliate more freely online than they can offline.  When Facebook unilaterally removes barriers of privacy, it leaves activists and their contacts open to persecution by authorities.

If you are an activist whose political activities or affiliations are visible through your Facebook account, you need to scrub your account of political content now.  This means:

1. Un-friend fellow activists
2. Leave any political groups you are a member or fan of
3. Delete political status messages, notes, and links and do not add new ones
4. Un-tag yourself from photos of you taking part in political activities or in the presence of known activists
5. Remove any linkages connecting you to politically dangerous people, ideas, or organizations

Even before the new rules came into effect, activists in repressive regimes should have kept their profiles clean.  A state security officer intent on viewing your profile will find a way to do it.  However, now that an activist’s name, profile picture, networks, current city, gender, friend list, and pages are automatically (and irrevocably) displayed, security personnel can use Facebook to map activist networks more easily.

Social media commentators like Evgeny Morozov and activists like Sami Ben Gharbia of Global Voices Advocacy advise activists in repressive regimes not to use Facebook and other commercial social platforms for activism at all because they are so public.  I would recommend caution but not outright rejection of these tools, which are indeed quite powerful.   In some countries the risks of detections will  be greater than the benefits of use, particularly where only a fraction of the population is using these tools, making the audience for activism limited.  However, in other countries activists may choose to continue using Facebook, but with greater caution.  It is possible to make Facebook use safer, but it is impossible to make it entirely safe.

So what are safer Facebook practices?  Other than the profile scrubbing recommended above, it means that activists need to create separate anonymous profiles for their political activities, which contain no accurate personal information and are completely unconnected to their real friends, affiliations, and locations.  In some cases, it may even make sense to create a “throw-away account,” much as activists use throw-away cell phones: create a fake account to do one sensitive action, and then never use it again.  So that a single IP address cannot be connected to you activism account, you should access that account from different public computers in cyber cafes and never from your home computer.

Activists should also refrain from posting anything incriminating on Facebook or creating groups that will endanger less tech-savvy citizens.  Maybe the Egyptian creator of the fictional group “President Mubarak is a Creep” started the group using an anonymous throw-away account, but the Egyptian citizens that join that group may not hide their identities and may thus make themselves vulnerable to persecution.  In this way activists unintentionally create “honey-pots” that ensnare fellow citizens in politically dangerous affiliations.

The competition between activists and repressive government for control of online speech and action is often referred to as a cat and mouse game where activists find ways to undermine and circumvent  blocks put in place by authorities.  However, as Facebook’s new privacy policy illustrates, this is not really a two-player game but a multi-player game.  Companies which create digital infrastructure also have the ability to give the advantage to one side or the other.  Facebook’s move unfortunately gave the advantage to repressive governments.

The project website details some ways you can provide and seek help:

During the week of September 14-21, you can make a serious difference in your local community. Here are just a few ideas of ways you can help:

• Teach senior citizens how to use the Web.
• Show a non-profit how to use social networking to grow its base of supporters.
• Help install a wireless network at a school.
• Create Web how-to materials for a library’s computer cluster.
• Refurbish hardware for a local computer center.
• Update a non-profit organization’s website.
• Teach the values of the open Web to other public benefit organizations.

Opportunities for Activists

Searching through #MozService09 opportunities on the Idealist website for “Activism” related projects already turns up about 30 interesting projects internationally including:

1. Graphic Designer
   Wetlands Activism Collective
   New York, New York  United States
   Last updated on: July 24, 2009
   Description: Wetlands Activism Collective seeks a graphic design student, professional, or other graphic skilled individual to design websites, publications, banners, presentations and educational displays. Helpful Skills: * Proficiency in graphic design for w…

1. Human Rights department
   ThirdWay Human Rights & Development NGO
   Amersfoort, Netherlands  Virtual
   Last updated on: September 3, 2009
   Description: One of ThirdWay’s primary goals in the future is to develop a Human Rights Education Centre in Anyako, Ghana. The center will be a beacon of activism and progress for the community. It will primarily focus on providing Human Rights classes that emphasize ..

Follow the Discussion on Twitter:

You can follow the discussion about the service week on twitter by following the #MozService09 hashtag.

The project is also hosting a Twitter chat on Monday, September 14, at 9am Pacific ( 5pm London time, 9:30pm in India) and will last for 1.5 hours.

DigiActive’s Participation:

Members of the (already all-volunteer) DigiActive team who think this is a brilliant idea have pledged to provide 100 hours of help to any organization or activist cause seeking assistance with their online strategies and digital activism tactics through the Service Week.

We also receive daily requests from activist campaigns working on human rights issues asking for technology and strategy assistance and we will encourage them to post their requests & find volunteers through #mozservice09.

A game simulation designed to raise awareness of the plight of refugees in Darfur, Sudan.

Background: Persuasive games, otherwise known as serious games, raise awareness through the medium of an experience. By immersing players in a story or in an environment they let players absorb the desired message in an engaging way. Criticisms of such games range from the questionable appropriateness of reducing complicated and often tragic circumstances to the simple structures required by games, to not being compelling enough to play. However, over the past few years the quality of persuasive games has evolved as non-profits, activists and designers’ have taken more interest.

Hush (Courtesy of Jamie Antonisse)

Game types range the gamut from puzzles, to strategy challenges, to those that require skill. They educate by illustrating the subject (in such games as Hush), by simulating the issue (as in Peacemaker), or by highlighting the call to action (as in Free Rice). Researchers are also working on developing new criteria and metrics with which to measure the effectiveness of serious games in achieving their goals.

Peacemaker

After all, the point is not to make learning about human rights violations fun, but to send a strong message by making the process of receiving it compelling. Lastly, there are an increasing number of tools, funding bodies, support organizations and conferences available to help drive the creation of serious games. For activists, all this makes developing games a viable strategy for reaching target audiences as well as a potent way to instigate action.

Tools: Games, websites, social networking, email

How they’re being used: “Darfur is Dying” is a simulation game created by Susana Ruiz and a team of students from the University of Southern California as part of an mtvU initiative and was funded by the Reebok Human Rights Foundation. The game raises awareness of the genocide underway in the Darfur region of Sudan by providing insight into the experiences of people living in the refugee camps.

Darfur is Dying: Game Screen in the Camp

Players choose characters and follow them as they perform tasks such as getting water and harvesting crops. Players discover that the probability of success is tied to the character’s age and gender and not only the player’s ability to steer through the obstacles confronted. Significantly, the game embeds within the playing options opportunities to perform actions in the real world, such as send letters to the President or to petition Congress. (See regions highlighted in red in the image above and the red box in the image below). Taking such actions positively impacts the player’s ability to achieve a better outcome within the game context. It also encourages further activism off-line by making the point of such actions visual. Lastly, as a web-based game designed to go viral it enables players to send the link to it through social networks or email with a mouseclick.

Clicking on "Send to a Friend" facilitates the viral nature of the game and message.

Impact:

Darfur is Dying has inspired school children to create documentaries,  generated press both in print and television and won several awards. In terms of reach,  over a million people have played it nearly 2.5 million times. This in turn has led to over 25,000 notes being sent to then President Bush and letters to Congress asking for support for the refugees. The game (which was launched in 2006) is still available on-line, has been updated to reflect the election of Barack Obama to the United States Presidency, and continues to generate new action.

Its impact beyond this is more difficult to measure but can not be discounted. For example, as the impetus for the creation of further educational tools such as “Killing Ignorance” and “Save Darfur!“, documentary films created by high school students, it has inspired others to spread the message. The media attention the game has received has drawn focus not only to the game, but also to the cause. From the perspective of the game as a viral instrument, this suggests the game’s effectiveness as a tool for activism. Measuring the effect of such viral spin-offs would require research coordination with their individual creators and sponsors.

Analysis: For activists, the main barrier to using a game as a tool is the cost involved. Darfur is Dying cost fifty thousand dollars to produce, required a team of developers and the input and coordination of several organizations. As Susana Ruiz, creator of Darfur is Dying mentioned in an interview, the business model for the creation of a serious game is similar to that of a documentary. There may not be much financial return, but the projects do have great impact on society. For activists, they are another way to achieve social change and make a difference.

It should be noted that the development of a serious game is different than one that is just for fun. For starters, the emphasis is on the purpose. That enables serious game developers to take advantage of pre-existing tools while concentrating on the mission, story and graphics. Darfur is Dying, for example, was based on a game called Food Force, developed by Italian game company Deepend. And, while they eventually put the game together in Flash, they originally planned to use the Half Life 2 engine, Source,  and examined other engines, too.

For games such as Darfur is Dying, the educational process includes the means of pushing that change since real world actions are embedded into the game play. This does not trivialize the importance of genuine involvement, but makes it easier for users to make the connection to their actions and  situations far away. Giving people the opportunity to see and experience how their actions have cumulative positive effects upon the world is one way to inspire them to take further action on their own.

Noted organizations and companies in this space include Games for Change, which sponsors the annual Games for Change Festival, Impact Games (Peacemaker and Play the News), Persuasive Games, (Howard Dean for Iowa game), and Serious Games Interactive (Global Conflict: Latin America). These are however by no means the only ones. A follow-up article will review the current status of the industry and the tools available for activists who want to develop persuasive games.

(Courtesy of Misterarasmus)

Background: In late June, following the Iranian government’s repression of public protest over the results of the 2009 elections, an ad-hoc network of internet specialists formed in support of the protesters. Fronted by open source advocate Eric S. Raymond, NedaNet, named in commemoration of the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan, provides information necessary for people within Iran to anonymously reach and publish to sites government filtering would otherwise make inaccessible.

Tools: Tor, blogs, IRC, email, USB drives, phones, word-of-mouth

How these tools are being used: NedaNet members maintain documents that explore how to bypass the Iranian government’s highly sophisticated and adaptable filters and work to anticipate what they will screen next. While the group currently recommends Tor for accessing the Internet from within Iran, they are also actively considering alternatives that could take over should current methods to evade the filters suddenly be blocked. They also maintain contact with people in Iran to help them keep continued Internet access.

More “interlinking circles of collaboration” than an organization, members of NedaNet communicate through blogs, IRC chats and websites that provide forums for members to gather more information and exchange ideas. Twitter hash tags provide topics for searches that lead to those forums. The groups working together mostly remain separate for security. As open source advocates, many of the members knew of each other through that arena. In fact, Raymond was one of the originators of the movement.

In the earlier days of the protests, proxies were collected and distributed via email and phone to people within Iran to enable them to bypass the restrictions. However, once it became known that the Iranian government had started deep-packet inspection on all traffic, activists were and still are advised against setting up or using proxies. Use of a Tor client removes the need for them.

While access to the Tor Project site is usually filtered, the site has many mirrors from which the client can be downloaded. According to recent Tor Project metrics, “there were around 7800 new and returning Iranian Tor users on June 24. By ‘returning’, we mean Tor clients that were off for at least several days, so they didn’t have cached directory information.” This suggests that Tor use was widespread even before the protests began. The same report notes that “bridge usage from Iran has boosted to 950% as compared to June 1.” As users receive copies of Tor clients over email or exchange them via USB drives, this could increase.

Challenges: As an open source based group, NedaNet believes that the test of a secure solution is that it works even if how it does so is public knowledge. Consequently, new solutions are at risk of attack even as they are being built. This however, is also one of the strengths of open source solutions and internet technologies have historically been built in the field. A bigger challenge at least for users within Iran is the general lack of bandwidth which makes any internet solution more difficult. Even before the election, 256Kbit was legally the cap on bandwidth for most people in Iran, according to one researcher. Furthermore, NedaNet recognizes that Tor is only a temporary solution.

Analysis: As an unstructured organization, NedaNet has the advantage of being able to maintain a high level of security for its members. Using open source tools in the field allows their solutions to be tested even as they are built, which is important for a security product which will be fully exposed the moment it is used. However, both the decentralization and the openness make it challenging to develop and deploy new solutions quickly and efficiently while simultaneously trying to remain fairly covert. While most of the members exist outside Iran, security is a real concern.

NedaNet servers are crowd-sourced, all work is performed pro bono and they do not currently accept donations. During this crisis a lot of energy is being directed towards this effort. However, once the perceived need ebbs, it will require focus to direct such a decentralized group in order to stay ahead of the government. Considering its relationships, even if tenuous, to other anonymous and free net groups, NedaNet will be able to take advantage of work being performed on behalf of other initiatives around the world.

Using pre-existing tools means the time to launch is shortened and the team can move on to developing long term measures. However, those tools come with known risks which make them temporary at best. Developing a lasting solution requires balancing the essential non-organized nature of the group with the various needs for security, field-testing, and rapid development.

Background

Tools: Twitter, external web site

How These Tools are Used: After seeing pictures of protestors in Iran wearing green, many Twitter users began to manually change their Twitter pictures. This individual process was then streamlined by the self proclaimed “creative geek” Arik (@arikfr ) in creating his website. He had seen what people were doing, liked it and so “decided to simplify the process to allow it to reach [a] wider audience.” This worked, as my twitter stream was soon filled with the simple message “Show support for #iranelection add green overlay to your Twitter avatar with 1-click – http://helpiranelection.com/”. From twitter juggernauts like @garyvee to smaller scale users; the green icon fad had permeated twitter.

Analysis: Recently there has been much discussion around the phenomenon of average people participating, or attempting to participate in online activism. Mary Joyce, cofounder of this web site, was recently quoted in the Washington Post article stating that the ease of creating or joining a cause online sadly resulted in only “a maximum of 5 percent [who] are going to take action”. This problem is mirrored on Twitter as members can feel as though they’ve done their moral duty by expressing their anger at the situation by turning their icons green. To many, they feel like that is enough, they are spreading the word and showing solidarity. But how many of them donated even $1 to help organizations in Iran? Now THAT would have helped. Other skeptics of this movement, such as Martin Bryant, made their frustration with these activities clear as well.

The real question stems from the implications of digital activism. Digital activism is a progressive way of tackling the injustices in the world, but is the internet making it too easy for the average person to feel like he/she has sufficiently participated and so relieving them from any feeling that they should do more? Were people using the green meme to try and convey what humane and politically active people they were whether or not there was any truth to it? The last thing we need as a culture is another easy way out of hard work. I would have preferred to see a system where to turn your icon green a $20 donation was required. While it is not a lot, it would have resulted in only the truly concerned tweeters participating.

During the protests in Iran Twitter was very useful as a communication device with the western world. The concept of the “citizen journalist” was extremely important as all information coming out of Iran came from the people. The New York Times writer Noam Cohen noted that “Twitter is a tool and thus difficult to censor”. Retweeted updates and pictures from Iran became my main news source on the situation and I know that I wasn’t alone. There were many inaccuracies, but social tools gave the American people the coverage that wasn’t available anywhere else.

In the past month, Twitter has proven that it is far more than a narcissistic platform. As seen when the hashtag #CNNfail was used to criticize CNN for their coverage of the election in Iran. The trending topic gained so much support that it provoked a written and spoken apology from the network. When the New York Times profiled Twitter as a company they acknowledged its ability to “disseminate information in the face of a press crackdown” during the Iranian election.

I contacted some Twitter users who still had green avatars to pose the question: “Why did you change your avatar green?”

Daniel @dwplanit

“A few reasons: I am strongly for populist democratic uprisings; it was easy; there isn’t much more I can do to support democracy in Iran…Another effect the avatar changes might have is simply encouraging Iranians to continue to fight for democracy. And that could be a positive side effect.”

Alejandro @successfool

“Because I want to use my twitter id/following to attract attention to the cause.”

Jimmy @loyaleagle

“I figured it would show solidarity among tweeps and might even help in some small way (though now I’m a little sick of it).”

Tee @TeeMonster

“When I found out about the “elected” government shutting down Social Media outlets, I was outraged. I turned the avatar green to show my support for the opposition and also as a statement for freedom of information. If Iran wants to be taken seriously as a nation, they need to realize that information cannot be blocked. Not in this age.”

Gina @gminks

“To me it was more about getting the word out, drawing attention. I don’t really think that is activism. But then again, I knew there was nothing I could do to change things in Iran.”

Arik @arikfr

“The idea of the campaign was to make it easy for people to show support and to raise awareness to the issue. To date over 230,000 people used the application to add green overlay/ribbon to their avatar, which means that most of Twitter users (if not all of them) have noticed it.”

Impact: I have mixed feelings about how quickly the fad of green avatars spread. It can be interpreted as honorable how fast Twitter became a seemingly outraged activist community or disheartening that our culture is happy to click a link to change their picture but nothing more. How can we modify what is expected of would-be online activists to engage them in making a concrete difference?

Background:  In his post on Saturday, DigiActive correspondent Hamid Tehrani referred in passing to “a scene of a girl murdered by security forces.”  A few days later and we all know who she was – Neda Agha Soltan, a 26-year-old killed en route to a protest in Tehran.  Only in this age, where every citizen with a cell phone can became a journalist and broadcaster is the story of Neda possible.

Tools: The story of Neda’s rise to prominence and powerful symbolism is a story of citizen media: from the cell phone cameras that recorded her death (video here – it is graphic), to the blogger who posted her story on the citizen journalism site NewsVine, to the Twitter conversation around the hashtag #Neda, and the Wikipedia entry that recorded the details of her murder in detail.   Finally her story reached the mainstream media: CNN, The New York Times, and Iranian television.

Analysis:  This is the story of Neda’s transformation from a person into a symbol.  But what does this story mean?  In particular, what does it mean for digital activism? Usually when we think of the use of digital technology for activism we think of communication tools which facilitate mass collective action: SMS, Facebook groups, listservs.  Yet the idea of Neda, though it may have inspired rage, sadness, and a commitment to continue protes, was not what we traditionally think of as digital activism.

Neda didn’t organize a protest but she helped to firmly re-frame the post-election protests in Iran.  The frame, or narrative, which the Iranian government was pushing was that the protests were caused by Western meddling and that the protesters were terrorists.   By making Neda the symbol of the opposition – a beautiful and unarmed young woman, previously apolitical – the new frame has moved firmly to those in the streets: the protesters are innocent idealists.  The government is murdering its people without cause.  Neda is not a terrorist.  She is a martyr (or so the Times story framed it).  And the practical effect of this re-framing on protests in Iran?  A renewed commitment to go out in the street every day, an ideal that Neda will not have died in vain.

Lessons:  What are the lessons for activists who wish to use citizen media to frame a public issue?  First, the media should be clear and emotional.  Neda’s video – the most spreadable form of media about her sotry – was raw and visceral.  Without understanding the words of the men trying to help her or knowing much of the story it was possible to empathize with her and feel the pain of her injustice.  It was international.

Second, push the media out on multiple platforms.  It is unclear where the video was first uploaded, though there are now several versions on YouTube.   The story was also pushed out through Newsvine, a news site accessible to ordinary citizens, and through Twitter.   Third, your goal should be to get into the mainstream media.  This is still where the majority of eyes are.  Email your content to media sources, but only if this will not put you in danger.  Finally, make is personal.  We understand news through human stories.  In America, we came to saw the corruption of our economic crisis through the crooked financier of Bernie Madoff.   Heroes too personify a struggle.

Background:  Protests against Iran’s presidential election results continue despite the warning of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday.  However, Iranian reformist candidates Mir Hussein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoub and their supporters have few communications options. They have no access to national TV, radio, or newspapers, which are under state control.   Text messaging is being blocked and web sites are filtered.  How are they able to organize a huge protest movement?

While the mainstream media has focused on the role of Twitter and decentralized organizing, the real picture of digital activism in Iran is more complex.  Protests are organized centrally by the campaigns of reformist candidates and then that information is disseminated both online and off.  The role of citizens with regard to social media is as citizen journalists, using YouTube and Twitter to report on what is happening, rather than to organize the protests.  Since this activity is intended for an international audience (and is in English) it is no wonder that this use of social media is more visible to a Western audience than the online tactics actually being used to organize the protests.

Tools: web sites, Facebook, Twitter, mouth-to-ear networks

How these tools are being used:  With regard to the post-election protests, decisions are made centrally by Mousavi and Karoubi and their campaigns. When they take their decisions they communicate them in different ways. First, they publish them on their websites, for example Kalamhe and Ghalam news.  Web 1.0 (as well as totally offline communication methods) are just as important as Web 2.0 (social media), though the latter is receiving for more attention.

Second, the reformist leaders use social networking systems to communicate these message. On Saturday Mir Hussein Mousavi’s Facebook published the news that demonstration will be held today. Mousavi has more than 65,000 supporters in his Facebook group and every message can reach this army of people directly.  Supporters were also asked to pass the message to others, implying that the leaders are deliberately making use of their supporters’ online and offline personal networks.   One of the main ways to organize the demonstrations  is person-to-person communication or talking with friends and neighbors… the mouth-to-ear method.  It still works and no government can shut it down.  (Maybe Iranian leaders imagine a divine power can prevent this form of communication as it did in the election.)

Third, as has already been noted (and overemphasized) in the mainstream media,  Twitter is being used.  However, the dynamic is different than has been previously reported.  Gholamhossein Karbaschi, a top adviser to Karoubi, communicates about his activity on his Twitter account (@gkarbaschi, in Farsi).  This is one of the only instances where Twitter is actually being used to organize protest inside Iran and again, this is centralized organization coming from the campaign of a reformist candidate.  An indication of the centralized nature of Twitter for organizing in Iran: @gkarbaschi has over 4,700 followers but is not following the feeds of any other users.  He is using social media to broadcast to a domestic audience, not to interact.

As has also been noted, people in Iran are using Twitter as an important broadcast (rather than organizing) tool to report events, slogans, and minute by minute protest movement. In this way, Twitter has turned a local struggle into a national and  international one.  A scene of a girl murdered by security forces is one dramatic example of news reported on Twitter.  As many reporters and interested observers around the world have learned, it also allows an international audience to follow the event in real time.

Finally, Iranian citizens upload films from around country on YouTube to show demonstrations, protest movements and reformists’ messages.  International mainstream media are using these citizen videos in their Iran coverage.  This combination of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, central organization and decentralized dissemination shows the flexibility of these tools and the true complexity of the use of digital activism in Iran.